Simultaneous Drying and Separation of Composite Agricultural Material for Hay Processing

In composite agricultural materials such as grass, tee, medicinal plants; leaves and stems have a different drying time. By this behavior, after leaving the dryer, the stems may have greater moisture content than desired, while the leaves one minor, which can cause either the appearance of fungi or the collapse of the over-dried material. Taking into account that a lot of grass is dehydrated in forced air dryers, especially rotary drum dryers, this research was developed in order to establish conditions enabling to make a separation of the components during the drying process in order to provide a homogeneous product at the end. For this, a rotary dryer consisting of three concentric cylinders and a circular sieve aligned with the more internal cylinder was proposed; so that, once material enters into the dryer in the area of the inner cylinder, stems pass through sieve to the middle and then continue towards the external cylinder, while the leaves continue by the inner cylinder. For this project, a mixture of Ryegrass and White Clover was used. The characteristics of the components of a mixture were: Drying Rate in thin layer and in rotation, Bulk density, Projected Area, Terminal velocity, weight/Area Ratio, Flux through Rotary sieve. Three drying temperatures; 40°C, 60° C and 80° C, and three rotation speeds; 10 rpm, 20 rpm and 40 rpm were evaluated. It was found that the differences in drying time are the less at 80 °C when the dryer rotates at 40 rpm. Above this speed, the material adheres to the walls of the dryer or sieve and does not flow. According to the measurements of terminal velocity of stems and leaves of the components of the mixture, the speed of the air should be less than 1.5 m s-1 in the inner drum for the leaves and less than 4.5 m s-1 in middle and outer drums for stems, in such way that only the rotational movement of the dryer moves the material and achieves a greater residence time. In other hand, the best rotary sieve separation efficiencies were achieved when the material is dry, but the results are good in all the moisture contents. The best rotary speed of sieve is within the critical rotational speed, i.e. 20 rpm. However, the rotational speed of the dryer, including the sieve in line with the inner cylinder should be 10 rpm or less in order to achieve the greatest residence times of the material inside the dryer and the best agitation through the use of lifting flights. With a finite element analysis of a dryer prototype, using an air flow allowing speeds of air already stated, I was found that the best performance occurs when, through a cover, air enters the dryer front of the Middle cylinder and when the inner cylinder is formed in its entirety through a sieve. This way, air flows in almost equal amounts by both the middle and external cylinders, while part of the air in the Middle cylinder passes through the sieve towards the inner cylinder. With this, leaves do not adhere to the sieve and flow along drier, thanks to the rotating movement of the drums and the showering caused by the lifting flights. In these conditions, the differences in drying time are reduced to 60 minutes, but the residence time is higher for the stems than for leaves, therefore the components of the mixture of grass run out of the dryer with the same desired moisture content.

Modification and Analysis of Group-13-Nitride Semiconductor Surfaces: Influence of Adsorbates on Device Characteristics and Processing

Im Rahmen dieser interdisziplinären Doktorarbeit wird eine (Al)GaN Halbleiteroberflächenmodifikation untersucht, mit dem Ziel eine verbesserte Grenzfläche zwischen dem Material und dem Dielektrikum zu erzeugen. Aufgrund von Oberflächenzuständen zeigen GaN basierte HEMT Strukturen üblicherweise große Einsatzspannungsverschiebungen. Bisher wurden zur Grenzflächenmodifikation besonders die Entfernung von Verunreinigungen wie Sauerstoff oder Kohlenstoff analysiert. Die nasschemischen Oberflächenbehandlungen werden vor der Abscheidung des Dielektrikums durchgeführt, wobei die Kontaminationen jedoch nicht vollständig entfernt werden können. In dieser Arbeit werden Modifikationen der Oberfläche in wässrigen Lösungen, in Gasen sowie in Plasma analysiert. Detaillierte Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die inerte (0001) c-Ebene der Oberfläche kaum reagiert, sondern hauptsächlich die weniger polaren r- und m- Ebenen. Dies kann deutlich beim Defektätzen sowie bei der thermischen Oxidation beobachtet werden. Einen weiteren Ansatz zur Oberflächenmodifikation stellen Plasmabehandlungen dar. Hierbei wird die Oberflächenterminierung durch eine nukleophile Substitution mit Lewis Basen, wie Fluorid, Chlorid oder Oxid verändert, wodurch sich die Elektronegativitätsdifferenz zwischen dem Metall und dem Anion im Vergleich zur Metall-Stickstoff Bindung erhöht. Dies führt gleichzeitig zu einer Erhöhung der Potentialdifferenz des Schottky Kontakts. Sauerstoff oder Fluor besitzen die nötige thermische Stabilität um während einer Silicium-nitridabscheidung an der (Al)GaN Oberfläche zu bleiben. Sauerstoffvariationen an der Oberfläche werden in NH3 bei 700°C, welches die nötigen Bedingungen für die Abscheidung darstellen, immer zu etwa 6-8% reduziert – solche Grenzflächen zeigen deswegen auch keine veränderten Ergebnisse in Einsatzspannungsuntersuchungen. Im Gegensatz dazu zeigt die fluorierte Oberfläche ein völlig neues elektrisches Verhalten: ein neuer dominanter Oberflächendonator mit einem schnellen Trapping und Detrapping Verhalten wird gefunden. Das Energieniveau dieses neuen, stabilen Donators liegt um ca. 0,5 eV tiefer in der Bandlücke als die ursprünglichen Energieniveaus der Oberflächenzustände. Physikalisch-chemische Oberflächen- und Grenzflächenuntersuchung mit XPS, AES oder SIMS erlauben keine eindeutige Schlussfolgerung, ob das Fluor nach der Si3N4 Abscheidung tatsächlich noch an der Grenzfläche vorhanden ist, oder einfach eine stabilere Oberflächenrekonstruktion induziert wurde, bei welcher es selbst nicht beteiligt ist. In beiden Fällen ist der neue Donator in einer Konzentration von 4x1013 at/cm-2 vorhanden. Diese Dichte entspricht einer Oberflächenkonzentration von etwa 1%, was genau an der Nachweisgrenze der spektroskopischen Methoden liegt. Jedoch werden die elektrischen Oberflächeneigenschaften durch die Oberflächenmodifikation deutlich verändert und ermöglichen eine potentiell weiter optimierbare Grenzfläche.

Meat yield and quality of Tanzania Shorthorn Zebu cattle finished on molasses/maize grain with agro-processing by-products in 90 days feedlot period

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of feeding molasses or maize grain with agro-processing by-products on yield and quality of meat from Tanzania shorthorn zebu (TSZ) cattle. Forty five steers aged 2.5 to 3.0 years with 200 +/- 5.4 kg body weight were allocated into five dietary treatments namely hominy feed with molasses (HFMO), rice polishing with molasses (RPMO), hominy feed with maize meal (HFMM), rice polishing with maize meal (RPMM) and maize meal with molasses (MMMO). Ad libitum amount of each dietary treatment and hay were offered to nine steers for 90 days. Cooking loss (CL) and Warner Bratzler shear force (WBSF) values were determined on M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum aged for 3, 6, 9 and 12 days. Steers fed on HFMO diet had higher (P < 0.05) nutrient intake (86.39 MJ/d energy; 867 g/d CP), weight gain (919 g/d) and half carcass weight (75.8 kg) than those fed other diets. Meat of steers from all diets was tender with average WBSF values of 47.9 N cm^(−2). The CL (22.0 +/- 0.61%) and WBSF (53.4 +/- 0.70 N cm^(−2)) were highest in meat aged for 3 days followed by 6, 9 and 12 days. WBSF values for meat aged for 9 and 12 days from steers fed HFMO and RPMM diets were similar and lower than those on other dietary treatments x aging periods. Overall, molasses and hominy feed can be used to replace maize meal in feedlot finishing diets to spare its use in animal feeds.

A Vector Signal Processing Approach to Color

Surface (Lambertain) color is a useful visual cue for analyzing material composition of scenes. This thesis adopts a signal processing approach to color vision. It represents color images as fields of 3D vectors, from which we extract region and boundary information. The first problem we face is one of secondary imaging effects that makes image color different from surface color. We demonstrate a simple but effective polarization based technique that corrects for these effects. We then propose a systematic approach of scalarizing color, that allows us to augment classical image processing tools and concepts for multi-dimensional color signals.

Geometry and Photometry in 3D Visual Recognition

The report addresses the problem of visual recognition under two sources of variability: geometric and photometric. The geometric deals with the relation between 3D objects and their views under orthographic and perspective projection. The photometric deals with the relation between 3D matte objects and their images under changing illumination conditions. Taken together, an alignment-based method is presented for recognizing objects viewed from arbitrary viewing positions and illuminated by arbitrary settings of light sources.

Feature Point Detection and Curve Approximation for Early Processing of Freehand Sketches

Freehand sketching is both a natural and crucial part of design, yet is unsupported by current design automation software. We are working to combine the flexibility and ease of use of paper and pencil with the processing power of a computer to produce a design environment that feels as natural as paper, yet is considerably smarter. One of the most basic steps in accomplishing this is converting the original digitized pen strokes in the sketch into the intended geometric objects using feature point detection and approximation. We demonstrate how multiple sources of information can be combined for feature detection in strokes and apply this technique using two approaches to signal processing, one using simple average based thresholding and a second using scale space.

Face processing in humans is compatible with a simple shape-based model of vision

Understanding how the human visual system recognizes objects is one of the key challenges in neuroscience. Inspired by a large body of physiological evidence (Felleman and Van Essen, 1991; Hubel and Wiesel, 1962; Livingstone and Hubel, 1988; Tso et al., 2001; Zeki, 1993), a general class of recognition models has emerged which is based on a hierarchical organization of visual processing, with succeeding stages being sensitive to image features of increasing complexity (Hummel and Biederman, 1992; Riesenhuber and Poggio, 1999; Selfridge, 1959). However, these models appear to be incompatible with some well-known psychophysical results. Prominent among these are experiments investigating recognition impairments caused by vertical inversion of images, especially those of faces. It has been reported that faces that differ "featurally" are much easier to distinguish when inverted than those that differ "configurally" (Freire et al., 2000; Le Grand et al., 2001; Mondloch et al., 2002) ??finding that is difficult to reconcile with the aforementioned models. Here we show that after controlling for subjects' expectations, there is no difference between "featurally" and "configurally" transformed faces in terms of inversion effect. This result reinforces the plausibility of simple hierarchical models of object representation and recognition in cortex.

Femtosecond laser processing of crystalline silicon

This paper reports the surface morphologies and ablation of crystalline silicon wafers irradiated by infra-red 775 nm Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser. The effects of energy fluences (below and above single-pulse modification) with different number of pulses were studied. New morphological features such as pits, cracks formation, Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSS) and ablation were observed. The investigation indicated that there are two distinct mechanisms under femtosecond laser irradiation: low fluence regime with different morphological features and high fluence regime with high material removal and without complex morphological features.

Hilbert space on probability density functions with Aitchison geometry

Compositional data analysis motivated the introduction of a complete Euclidean structure in the simplex of D parts. This was based on the early work of J. Aitchison (1986) and completed recently when Aitchinson distance in the simplex was associated with an inner product and orthonormal bases were identified (Aitchison and others, 2002; Egozcue and others, 2003). A partition of the support of a random variable generates a composition by assigning the probability of each interval to a part of the composition. One can imagine that the partition can be refined and the probability density would represent a kind of continuous composition of probabilities in a simplex of infinitely many parts. This intuitive idea would lead to a Hilbert-space of probability densities by generalizing the Aitchison geometry for compositions in the simplex into the set probability densities

Aitchison Geometry for Probability and Likelihood as a new approach to mathematical statistics

The Aitchison vector space structure for the simplex is generalized to a Hilbert space structure A2(P) for distributions and likelihoods on arbitrary spaces. Central notations of statistics, such as Information or Likelihood, can be identified in the algebraical structure of A2(P) and their corresponding notions in compositional data analysis, such as Aitchison distance or centered log ratio transform. In this way very elaborated aspects of mathematical statistics can be understood easily in the light of a simple vector space structure and of compositional data analysis. E.g. combination of statistical information such as Bayesian updating, combination of likelihood and robust M-estimation functions are simple additions/ perturbations in A2(Pprior). Weighting observations corresponds to a weighted addition of the corresponding evidence. Likelihood based statistics for general exponential families turns out to have a particularly easy interpretation in terms of A2(P). Regular exponential families form finite dimensional linear subspaces of A2(P) and they correspond to finite dimensional subspaces formed by their posterior in the dual information space A2(Pprior). The Aitchison norm can identified with mean Fisher information. The closing constant itself is identified with a generalization of the cummulant function and shown to be Kullback Leiblers directed information. Fisher information is the local geometry of the manifold induced by the A2(P) derivative of the Kullback Leibler information and the space A2(P) can therefore be seen as the tangential geometry of statistical inference at the distribution P. The discussion of A2(P) valued random variables, such as estimation functions or likelihoods, give a further interpretation of Fisher information as the expected squared norm of evidence and a scale free understanding of unbiased reasoning

Vertebrates Limb Geometry in the Simplex space

A novel metric comparison of the appendicular skeleton (fore and hind limb) of different vertebrates using the Compositional Data Analysis (CDA) methodological approach it’s presented. 355 specimens belonging in various taxa of Dinosauria (Sauropodomorpha, Theropoda, Ornithischia and Aves) and Mammalia (Prothotheria, Metatheria and Eutheria) were analyzed with CDA. A special focus has been put on Sauropodomorpha dinosaurs and the Aitchinson distance has been used as a measure of disparity in limb elements proportions to infer some aspects of functional morphology

Colour image processing

In the context of the round table the following topics related to image colour processing will be discussed: historical point of view. Studies of Aguilonius, Gerritsen, Newton and Maxwell. CIE standard (Commission International de lpsilaEclaraige). Colour models. RGB, HIS, etc. Colour segmentation based on HSI model. Industrial applications. Summary and discussion. At the end, video images showing the robustness of colour in front of B/W images will be presented

Planar homography: accuracy analysis and applications

Projective homography sits at the heart of many problems in image registration. In addition to many methods for estimating the homography parameters (R.I. Hartley and A. Zisserman, 2000), analytical expressions to assess the accuracy of the transformation parameters have been proposed (A. Criminisi et al., 1999). We show that these expressions provide less accurate bounds than those based on the earlier results of Weng et al. (1989). The discrepancy becomes more critical in applications involving the integration of frame-to-frame homographies and their uncertainties, as in the reconstruction of terrain mosaics and the camera trajectory from flyover imagery. We demonstrate these issues through selected examples

A survey addressing the fundamental matrix estimation problem

Epipolar geometry is a key point in computer vision and the fundamental matrix estimation is the only way to compute it. This article surveys several methods of fundamental matrix estimation which have been classified into linear methods, iterative methods and robust methods. All of these methods have been programmed and their accuracy analysed using real images. A summary, accompanied with experimental results, is given

How spatial attention and attentional resources influence the processing of emotional visual scenes

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